How CloudNation aligned and accelerated their business
Founded in the Netherlands by three Public Cloud Enthusiasts with strong backgrounds in hyper-scaler technologies, CloudNation was built on a bold idea: help organisations accelerate their public cloud journey by enabling and empowering them with specialised expertise.
Under the leadership of CEO Arjen Vriens, CloudNation quickly grew into a trusted cloud consultancy, offering deep engineering, architectural, and strategic capabilities. What began as a small, hands-on startup evolved into a thriving company of 80+ people, supporting everyone from startups to complex enterprise clients.
With demand growing and a vision to double in size, the company found itself at a pivotal moment – transitioning from founder-led hustle to a scale-up. To get out of the scaleup phase, CloudNation knew they needed to reflect, learn from each other and re-align key stakeholders on key business priorities.
This is where AWS asked align.me® to enter the picture.
SNAPSHOT:
The challenge
CloudNation was moving at a rapid pace (60+ employees in 6 years) and like many fast-growing businesses, CloudNation hadn’t really stopped to take stock or look back.
In the early days, the founders were involved in every aspect of the business: selling, delivering, and supporting clients hands-on. But as the company matured, it became clear that continuing to scale would require a more deliberate approach.
While the team wasn’t “stuck,” they recognised they were at risk of growing without clarity. Sales, marketing, and delivery were moving forward, but not always in sync. And internally, the business needed aligned messaging, clearer priorities, and shared understanding across functions of who CloudNation really were.
CloudNation didn’t just want a strategy, they wanted alignment. A way to bring leadership and stakeholders together in one room to pressure test assumptions, challenge existing thinking, and co-create a plan that everyone owned.
What they needed was the right forum, the right questions, and a trusted guide to help get them there.
The strategy
To get a helicopter view of their business and prepare for their next phase of growth, CloudNation engaged align.me to run a Funnel Camp™.
Funnel Camp™ is the name given to align.me’s structured, high-impact planning workshop designed to align teams, validate their go-to-market strategy, and build a 3-year execution plan that drives growth. To date, more than 600 growth businesses from 48 countries have participated, achieving on average a doubling of pipeline after 12 months. Since 2018, align.me has been repurposing the hard-won lessons gained from Funnel Camp™ to help AWS partners grow. The AWS PTP is a sponsored growth program specially designed by AWS and align.me to accelerate partner success, resulting in the sale of cloud consumption.
For CloudNation, PTP was the perfect solution. A focused forum where stakeholders could step out of the day-to-day and work on the business – not just in it.
The work
Across six sessions, align.me’s strategic Funnel Coach™ guided the CloudNation team through a highly collaborative process, built around buyer-centric thinking and real-world execution.
The workshops created space for honest reflection and deep discussion, pushing leaders to answer fundamental questions:
80% of the value came from simply getting the right people in the room and giving them time to think strategically. The other 20% came from align.me’s expert facilitation – challenging assumptions, asking the tough questions, and guiding the team toward an aligned view of the path forward.
PTP didn’t just deliver alignment. It gave CloudNation a highly actionable plan. One that is mapped to every stage of the buyer’s journey, with ownership and accountability, that could be monitored and adjusted during regular sprints during the first 100-days.
One of the biggest weaknesses of workshops is they are often forgotten post workshop. But not with align.me. They follow up on the items agreed together, ensuring prioritised actions get executed.
Looking ahead
The real value of PTP, according to Arjen, wasn’t just the insights uncovered during the sessions, it was what happened afterward.
With a clear plan in place and alignment across leadership, CloudNation gained the structure and momentum needed to move confidently into its next phase of growth. The plan didn’t sit on a shelf, it became the single source of truth, tracked through regular sprints, with align.me providing ongoing support and accountability.
Now, as CloudNation looks to scale from 60 to 120+ employees, they’re doing so with a unified direction, sharper messaging, and tighter alignment between sales, marketing, and delivery.
If you’re thinking about investing in a GTM planning workshop, consider the return: it’s not just about the workshops. It’s about the plan, the execution, and the accountability, and align.me makes sure it all happens.
